Summer Solstice has always carried with it a sense of gloom, of warning perhaps, of dread. The deep mauve and orange sky as it stretches across white crested mountains tops and the jagged tips of darkening trees paints a picture of the looming night. As if on the back of the longest day, the longest night sits perched and waiting. A chill wind will blow and kick up clouds on the horizon that won’t bring rain, but will bring the desire of it. The longing for solitude, perhaps, in the celebration of the coming harvest. A sense that death will resume in the moments of brightest life.

Like a charcoal stained pit with the fire still raging. A hint that this heat won’t last. Don’t get too acustom to the warmth or the day or the long hours spent lazy in a dreamy haze. The echoes of tomorw are in the air and the dimness of worry and fear are here. Monsters on haunches waiting for the light to pass.

And in fourteen days, the earth passes furthest from the sun. Another hint of what’s to come. Another warning: don’t forget that life is a wheel and we are ever spinning.

But it’s amazing to return to the place where all things first went wrong. Someone new sits across the way where, last time, it was me and you in my place. And we drink drinks something like you and I drank then. And we talk talks something like you and I talked then.

But the language is not quite as thin, and I mention edges of the mistakes I’ve made and the things I’m struggling to dispell from magical wells kept barred inside of me. And the words I hear back are so comforting and sweet. And how can I not accept:

“You can’t do more than you did. And what you did is good enough.”

For the first time in years uncounted, I feel good enough.
For this life and this body and these scars from those places where I scraped by, where I held on, where holes in my chest slowly closed.

I can recognize why the methods of their damage worked, and I can come to terms with the damage that I want. And I can love whatever is left. And I can love whatever is to come.

And I can love you, despite everything the past amounted to.
And by love — I mean accept and forgive.
And by forgive — I mean let go.

Taurus laid a rug out on the floor for the sun to lay upon. But when it came dusk, the sun ran off with a couple of clouds instead. Something about wanting more and needing less was uttered in the escape as the three began a mild escapade of scavenger hunts for moments bright and brilliant in the day.

A couple days passed and nothing changed.
Taurus alone with a blanket and a rug.

Then Virgo came along and made some comments, mild suggestions really. But Taurus didn’t want to hear it, being bullheaded and all. So, Virgo sat cross-legged on the rug and waited.

In the morning after that afternoon, another came and gave no name in particular. Just a firm hand-shake and a gentle smile. One that indicated everything would be alright. But no discussions about solutions ushered forth from anyone’s lips. They all sat or stood just staring around that spacious room. Each one in their own mind wondering — what will come of this?

And another day passed.

The next came a fox with a wand lit and smoking from a glowing flame. The light of that orange tongue lit the room, bathed everyone’s face in a warm glow. And soon Taurus was asking “Who are you” and “How will we-” and things about trying to fix this place.

The fox was agile, though, and did not answer but painted for everyone this picture: a glowing red sun slowly turning blue and setting over purple crested mountains as grasses swayed and birds winged overhead through clouds thin like whisps of hair.

Taurus nodded, thinking the answer was understood. Virgo got up, turned, and left the room. The fox laid down to sleep. And in the night, a nightengale sang and an owl joined the party in the room lit, still, by the fox’s wand.

A single hour before dawn, the owl perked up and sang. Not a lyrical melody, but a sad song of longing. Of missed places and lost conections, of failed hunts and lonely nights, of cold and bitter winters. Of games with no winners.

And as the sun crested the flat land, the owl shoved off and flew away.
The fox didn’t stir.
Taurus didn’t know what to do, so wept unendlingly at the loss.

A new day. A new white hot sun. And another magical landscape to examine.
Across a blue grass field, a breeze, warm and clearly blowing from a summer place, blew. The window hanging half open let the fresh air in. This made the room feel a little less daunting. Cozy, even. A little safe. And Taurus, eyes dried from yesterday, laid down beside the fox and fell fast asleep.

Disclaimer: The following are flash shorts written in the round, blind, one sentence at a time, by a table of six people. A perfect party game my fellows and I like to call “Rambling”.
—

The rain stopped and I looked out the window, thinking: today is my day, finally. At last, I could ignore my allergy to water and walk to the corner store. Not that they caried any cola here; only “Pepsi”, the bastards. Being raised in Atlanta meant I couldn’t even bear to speak its name.

Ignoring my past trama, I took a deep breath, summoned my courage and spoke a single word: “Furby”.

Not surprisingly and unfortunately, that one word was *not* a universal peace-maker. In fact, it just got everyone so stirred up that no-one could even count tp three before guns were out and *someone* lost a head.

I swear to god, every time I give firearms to kindergarteners, something just HAS to go wrong.

It happened in a blur – a flash of light, the unmistakable stench of gun powder and scorched hair, a splash of blood too red, and pain that started in my groin and spread — “Shit,” and then I dropped.
—

It was unlikely that the cat had gotten in the chimney unaided. I suspected a kindly Santa had helped spirit him up, but then, they said I was crazy.

It was only because of the incident with the leprachauns, which I still maintain was entirely Mary’s fault. After all, Mary had been the money-hungry snitch from the start and how — HOW was I to know leprachauns eat people?!

It WAS an extremely obscure aspect of the mythology, only really partly known even in Ireland. And though it was obscure, it did have a wikipedia page descriing its beautiful green wings and gleaming eyes. Someone kept deleting the vital information about its lethal venom. So when the mutated guinea pig escaped, no one could cute the bits.

The next year, everyone was sporting cowlicks and making grunting noises.
—

By the time the squirrel exploded, it as already too late. By the time they figured out the problem, the raccoon and the muskrat had gone too.

“Time for the explosives,” Captain called, “We’ll blow ’em out for sure!”

Most of the crew, though obliging, were nowhere near sure of that, however, and they dragged their heels over setting the charges. They adorned the looming contrete curve, the placid lake, and the cheap electricity. But something had to give.

What should have been expected but somehow missed was the fact the old damn was in poor shape. It simply couldn’t handle the spawning salmon. They way their dead fishy eyes gaped after coitus was enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

So, everyone had a shower, they quietly agreed to burn the evidence, and as the sun set, the flames raged, history was erased, and they all thought — now what?
—

Sadly, my week began with a surprise. Not a happy someone-gave-me-a-secret-present kind of surpise; oh no! It was more of a “hey look, some asshole thre a tennis-ball through your sun-room ceiling and a nest of wasps has taken up permanent residence” sort of surprise. Which was my favorite sort – the kind I had brought my attack swan to deal with.

People laugh at my swan until they find themselves with a broken tibia. Not the femer, not the fibia, not any other bone, just the tibia shattered into a million pieces. The doctors later gave it a zero chance to save it, though that was ignored successfully.

Death – Grandma Rose used to say – is natural, and when we all collectively remembered that, murder just sounded that much…well, funnier really. So we took turns poisoning, stabbing, and shooting each other until we stopped laughing for good — well, everyone except for Grandma, who is probably still laughing. Bless her.
—

“Happy fucking birthday,” he screamed to no-one in particular.

“It’s not my birthday!” about six uncreative or idiotically gullable passer-bys said back.

It was these morons we were after, so as son as they spoke, we bagged them over the head, tazed them, and tossed them in the back of the van.

We all agreed it was for the best; no one could stand those Scottish accents of theirs. They took all the whiskey with them, just to spite us. The bastard shit heels were too drunk or dumb to realize we’d meet again. Meet again in a darkened bar with a crowbar and a shattered skull to seal the deal.

Langon wasn’t about to take this sketchy message seriously, and crumpled the paper it was on. Fate, however, was against Langon – had been since day one – and so, of course, the inevtiable did happen: the sun went super-nova and obliterated the earth.
Oh well.
—

He knew instantly when the dolphin-harnessing plan went terribly wrong. To have loved a sea mammal, Flit thought, was to have gone down Road Failure at high speed.

But, could you really call it a mammal? What even really were the scientific distinctions between a fish and a mammal? Fur and fins, live births and fertilized eggs, lungs and gills all mixed up..

“Hell is other people,” so its said, but Kafka never worked in a rendering plant.

THe feeling of fatty animal ghosts clung to her for days no matter how she washed. By the third day, her only options appeared to be a full bath of lysol or a sandblaster. Lysol was for germophobes, so sandblaster is was.

And the sandblaster seemed actually strangely successful!
—

I believed in love, hope, and basic human goodness — then I made my first friend. Sonja, bitch goddess of passive/aggressive words and actions. Too many notes, too many misunderstandings, too much bullshit for one octopus to handle.

“Everything’s hattah unda de watah” What kind of tripe is that? It thought as it dropped the mallets and unceremoniously ditched out. Literally just ran its bleeding little heart out, and that’s no metaphor because it actually ran unti it died; no joke. And it was also literally bleeding all over the goddamn carpet.

“OMG – BOOD EVERYWHERE,” the report would read later.

Lazy journalists and taking the Lord’s Name in vain piss me off endlessly; I would not read it.

“Fuck me Jesus that was one hell of a book.”
—

We blotted ten napiks worth of grease off of that pizza, and it wasn’t even an extra-large. Not even five minutes later, our bicylces were again squeek fere and ready to charge off into the unknown.

The pack of feral dogs proved to be far more problematic to our group. They stalked us for days until Jorge finally collapsed from dehydration.

I said we could have solved the problem much sooner with a well-placed bullet or two, but no-one was having that. So, I picked up my bullets out of the grin I’d drawn in the sand, kicked the grid in, and told everyone to get stuffed in my meanest voice.

Honestly? Probably sounded more like a whiney/angsty teen or something, but I tried. Like, omg, I tried. Why do people have to be such lazy dogs about everything?
—

The sun caught Tallow in the eyes just as the bike crested the last hill. It was enough of a beautiful distraction to cause one of the wheels to snag a particularly gnarly root and destroy the careful balance, tipping the ride towards a tumble. In slow motion they fell, and yet they felt in their heart, they couldn’t take their eyes off the glorious view.

Wanting to see a live volcano had been their dream – just not like this.

Kayla took a deep breath and began to summon her water spirit, but it was too late. By then, the flames had overtaken her entire regiment. “To hell with this,” with a middle finger to the fire, because she was over it – all of it.

“I need to fly to Antarctica or something. Get away from all this,” she thought.

So, fleeing the warmth and never-ending Bellingham Blue Skies, off she went to meet her icy doom.
—

“Oh my god Becky, enough of your bullshit,” I had sen this movie before. Becky was always full of bullshit, so I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. So as she kept piling and piling it on me, my mouth just kept getting bigger and my eyes wider.

When she finally stopped, god! thought I’d die, and then she gets out a knife and begins sharpening it with no expression at al. Two could play at this game, I thought, and put the kettle on; AT her.

She smirked and started taking my Nana’s best china down, and from the cream pot choice, I knew she was going to serve tea – badly. So she did, dropping every cup, saucer, and sugar pot until the table resembled a badly fractured glacier.

Everyone stopped and stared in the silence after the final crash. One person tried to clap: everyone just shook their heads dissapprovingly until it stopped.
—

The concrete heaved, buckled, and cracked, revealing something better left buried. The stench seared all five sense in unforgettable ways.

“God dammit, Buck,” I muttered, “wash the dishes already.”

Butck, being a moose-head on the wall, predictably had nothing to say. So, the call was made, in came the moose-head collectors – you know the type: never shot a gun, don’t-know-how-to-hunt crazies who just stuff their walls full of this shit – and Buck was never “heard from” again.

Mags didn’t want that to be true and within a week of the disappearance had made a pretty strong self-declaration to find Buck. They packed a bag with the usual supplies: rope, knife, lighter, tarp, sleeping bag and a half dead squirerl. The basic consensus was it wasn’t camping without a first night of Brunswick Stew. Of course, none of them lived to dawn, so that only mattered to me.
—

Have you ever considered,” Stella asked thoughtfully between bites of spaghetti, “that you might actually be a fish-man?”

“That would explain the smell I can’t get rid of,” Julie said with a sigh.

“Yeah,” I said, still holding the exstinguisher, “Tires burn great at the land fill but the home hearth if a poor choice.”

And though the smoke was thick and black, the pizza came out alright with only the faintest hint of rubber. Really, if you added enough of the “oregano” they’d scrounged up, you wouldn’t really tast it at all.

Like the time we mistook poison hemlock for wild carots – we seasoned that shit so well it was delicious. Gravnted, our memories of what poison hemlock actually *tasted* like are understandably fuzzy.

Without wasting time, I pulled out my edible plant book from my bag, fumbled, and dropped it into the puddle. “Fine!” shaking my fist at the universe determined to fuck me over. “I’ll just starve.”
—